Bad Questions: What Makes a Question Bad?

We begin with a paradox that is, in fact, perfectly ordinary: some questions never get answered, no matter how smart, careful, or diligent we are. They linger in our conversations, in philosophy, in science, in everyday reflection, and they feel urgent, pressing, legitimate.

Yet, the more we chase them, the more they seem to resist resolution. “Does science describe reality?” “Is time an illusion?” “Do we really have free will?” These questions are familiar, almost iconic. And yet, they share a curious property: their persistence is not accidental. Their frustration is not a product of insufficient data or faulty reasoning. The questions themselves are, in a very particular way, structurally unanswerable.

This series, Bad Questions, is devoted to those questions. Not to dismiss them. Not to solve them. Not even to reinterpret them according to some new theory. Instead, we will look closely at what makes them what they are, why they seem urgent, and why they inevitably generate the same loops of debate over and over again.

Each post will follow a rhythm:

1. The Question — Presented in its strongest, most respectable form.

2. Why It Keeps Arising — What pressures, cognitive or cultural, make this question feel legitimate.

3. What the Question Quietly Assumes — The ontological and conceptual commitments hidden in the very grammar of the question.

4. The Forced Binary — Why every attempt to answer collapses into predictable extremes.

5. The Structural Diagnosis — Not an answer, but a map of why the question can’t satisfy the expectations it generates.

6. What Changes If We Stop Asking It That Way (optional) — A gentle, provisional nudge toward inquiry that actually moves.

The goal is forensic, not polemical. Each post is a kind of post-mortem: a careful, attentive examination of a question that haunts thought. The method is precise, the tone calm, and the insight cumulative.

By the end of the series, you will not have answers in the conventional sense. You will, instead, have a clearer sense of why some questions persist, why they fail, and what it might mean to shift the questions themselves.

Consider this the invitation: a front-row seat to the anatomy of questions that refuse closure. And, in watching them, perhaps we can begin to see what kinds of inquiry actually move.